I'll Try to Keep You
by PristinelyUngifted
Summary: "When it's done," Draco says. "When it's finished, I'll try to keep you. Tell them you're my pet or my toy, whatever they want to hear. I'll try to keep you." Written for hp prisonerfest.


**Warnings:** Graphic Fantasy Violence; Torture; Stockholm Syndrome; Non-Graphic Mention of Two Teenagers Having Sex; Imprisonment; Present Tense Narration.

* * *

_I'll Try To Keep You_

"When it's done," Draco says. "When it's finished, I'll try to keep you. Tell them you're my pet or my toy, whatever they want to hear. I'll try to keep you."

He speaks in a whisper like the hiss of a snake, and then he beats her because Bellatrix is watching. Bellatrix is always watching.

Draco's hand falls heavy on Luna's cheek, and she wants to say _Thank you_, and _It's okay_, and _Don't cry, Draco_, but what comes out instead is a pitiful grunt. Draco doesn't pull his blows, because if he does and they realize, if he does and they know, they will only hurt her worse, and they will hurt him too.

So Draco splits Luna's lip, and blackens her eye, and kicks her in the ribs, and Luna is grateful. She forgives him, and later, when he sneaks down into the cellar of Malfoy Manor in the night, she will hold him while he gasps and shudders, sickened by his handiwork. She will let him heal her as much as he knows how. And she will refuse, when he asks, to hurt him back.

No amount of his blood can wipe the slate clean, and it isn't his place to try.

"Don't be so Muggle, Draco," Bellatrix orders, her voice like a lash. And now it is no longer Draco's fists, but the torture curse that makes Luna writhe, her tongue gnashing against her teeth until bloody foam spills over her lips.

"That's more like it," Bellatrix says as Luna gags.

"_Crucio_," Draco spits, and Luna feels like she's been dropped in a vat of boiling oil. She burns, and she's turned inside out, and her bones liquefy, and her vision goes white. _Avada Kedavra_, she wishes he'd say. But then she remembers her father, and she changes her mind.

She always changes her mind.

**-l-**

Mr. Ollivander lies broken in the corner. Luna leaves his half of the bread and water near his face, and retreats to her side of the basement. Mr. Ollivander never speaks. Luna talks to him, but he never responds. He's lost, gone somewhere inside his head where they can't follow.

Luna would be lost too, would run and hide deep inside herself, but she doesn't want to leave Draco alone.

Sometimes, Luna thinks that he is more a prisoner than she is.

There is a creak on the stair, and Luna looks up, expecting to see Draco. He comes and sits with her, talks with her, when he is home. She is all he has, and he is hers, just as much. They don't talk about the war. Of course they don't. They don't mention the water dripping down the walls, or the dirt on Luna's feet, or the blood on her lips. Luna doesn't ask about Draco's sunken cheeks, or the way his left arm twitches, or the hopelessness in his eyes.

They don't talk about them dying, of course they don't, but they both feel Death's fingers on their spines.

They make plans they know will never come true. _If things were different_, they don't say, but begin every sentence with just the same.

"When we graduate, we'll get married. You're a Pureblood, and a Ravenclaw, and you've the proper look of a Malfoy. No one can say anything against it. It's traditional for a Malfoy to wear diamonds, but you can have any stone in your engagement ring you like. I'll speak to father about it."

"I'm glad that I'm blonde, then. Maybe it's destiny. I've never followed my heart line before. I never thought anyone would be interested." And Luna looks at her right hand, at the lines creasing her palm, but Draco catches her wrists before she can come to any conclusions.

"Don't," he says, pressing their palms together, his hollow eyes riveted on hers. _Don't look_, he doesn't say, _because I know it isn't me_.

Lune decides then that she loves him.

**-l-**

The basement stairs creak, heralding Wormtail's approach. Draco is at school, and it is Wormtail now, who tortures Luna.

She doesn't forgive him, because he isn't sorry.

Except the creak isn't Wormtail at all, but a large man with dirty clothes and scruffy hair. He smiles and crooked fangs flash yellow-white in the gloom.

Fenrir Greyback.

"Such big eyes," he says to Luna, in a reversal of an old Muggle tale.

Luna says, "The better to see you with."

Fenrir comes closer, and Luna can't move. She is frozen by terror, rooted to the spot.

"Stop, werewolf," a strident voice echoes against the basement walls, and for once Luna is glad that Bellatrix is watching.

Bellatrix is always watching.

"The girl is Draco's. You can have her when he's done, but until then I won't have you ruining his work. He's done so well, for his first time."

Loony Loony Lovegood, that's what they call Luna. What then, does it mean that she thinks Bellatrix is crazy?

**-l-**

Draco is home. Luna can feel him moving around the manor, even without her wand. She has always been sensitive. She wonders why he's there, and how much time has passed, and then decides it doesn't matter.

That night, Draco comes down the stairs, and when Luna touches him, he kisses her.

"I have to," Draco mutters. "I have to protect you from them. From _him_. Do you understand?" And Luna doesn't, she doesn't understand anything anymore, but she _believes_, so she says, "Yes."

And Draco presses her down into the dust of the cellar floor, and he pulls off her tattered robes. "Please, please, please," he says against her skin, a prayer. "Please want this too. Please understand. Please, Luna, please."

And then Luna does understand, and she rolls on top of Draco and unfastens his vest. He flinches away when she divests him of his shirt, but she won't let him. He curls his left arm into his body, hiding the Dark Mark against his chest, and Luna has to use both hands to pry it away. She traces the jet black skull tattoo with her tongue, and Draco grimaces as if in pain.

"We all wear it," Luna says. "Yours is just easier to see."

They have sex, and it hurts, because it's Luna's first time and Draco's hips are bony and terror is beating at the door. But when there is a creak on the stair and a low, muffled growl, Luna knows that Fenrir is watching and he won't touch her now.

**-l-**

"Harry Potter's in the drawing room," Draco says as he shakes her awake. He sounds panicked and small. "He'll get you out. They'll put him in here, and he'll get out. He always does, somehow. And he'll take you with him."

He pushes her hair back from her face, and presses a kiss to her brow, and Luna can feel hot tears on her forehead.

"Draco!" Bellatrix calls, and Luna knows she's in the drawing room above them, though she's not sure how she knows. Perhaps Luna's magic has grown in tune with the house. Maybe her heart line does lead to Draco, and the manor knows that she is to be a Malfoy after all.

It's a lovely thought. The prison turned protector.

"Draco! Come here!"

Draco's fingers tremble, and Luna wants to say _Thank Merlin_, and _It's okay_, and _Don't cry, Draco_, but what comes out instead is, "When it's done, when it's over, I'll try to keep you."


End file.
